


Twisted Little Sister

by bunnytier



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Drugs, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 04:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnytier/pseuds/bunnytier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamzee is a hardcore drug addict—he just doesn't know it. But his friends Karkat, Terezi, and Tavros certainly do, and when he overdoses and nearly dies they decide to send him to meetings for substance abuse no matter how reluctant he is. It's there that he meets Roxy: a crazy little girl who shows up intoxicated with a cat! At first he has little interest, but through some strange turn of events he finds her attached to his hip in the worst of ways...and her "big brothers" aren't too fond of it, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Denial

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhhhh this is my first fic on here. So I'm not sure how this is going to go down, okay? Be nice! If anything needs fixing, let me know, I guess? I'm always open for criticism and I hope you guys enjoy this little fic as much as I am. :3

“HELP! SOMEONE HURRY UP AND HELP HIM, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!”

“Is he breathing?”

“N-No! Barely! Please help him!”

He could hear them all shouting, the noise striking his ears hard as if he was taking a baseball bat rather than a voice crying for help. Karkat was such a good motherfucking friend. And Terezi was right there with him, too. She’d been there all along, guiding them into the night club off by heart. Of course Karkat had been reluctant to go, and why wouldn’t he be? He had every reason to avoid places like that. That night, however, Gamzee was glad he’d convinced himself to walk away from the computer and go with him to the club. If it hadn’t been for Karkat, he would have never made it to the hospital.

Oh shit...the hospital? He was in the hospital?

“We’re going to have to pump his stomach!”

What for? It wasn’t like he was...

Oh. He was.

Gamzee tried to move but he couldn’t seem to do anything. His body weighed a thousand tonnes and his head equivalent of a feather; his eyes fluttered as he tried desperately to open his eyes, just to see Karkat running next to him, but all he could see through the crack was blinding lights. They flashed as the stretcher moved faster down the hallway, and became unbearable to look at. He shut his eyes and scowled, trying to turn his head but found he couldn’t even do that, no matter how the world beneath him twisted and turned.

“Hang on, Gamzee! Hang on!” Karkat’s voice simmered away into the bleak darkness, and with one last mental goodbye so did the rest of the world.

 

“I can’t believe this happened...I can’t...”

Tavros? Was that his voice? No...it couldn’t be. He had to make sure. He turned his head to the voice for what seemed to be an eternity, and opened his eyes for another still. A pursed scowl, an un-gelled Mohawk, and empty eyes greeted his sight; Karkat, Tavros, and Terezi sat around on one side of the bed, Tavros in his wheelchair and the others on hospital chairs. None of them noticed his eyes open so he let it slip by them and listened.

“None of us really saw it coming,” Terezi said, momentarily giving a light grin for the pun she made but wiped it away just as quickly. “He didn’t seem like he was spiraling out of control.”

Who’s spiralling out of control? Not me. Gamzee thought, looking up at Tavros’ head. He was looking at his feet, and probably had been doing so for a while. The poor little motherfucker looked so upset and Gamzee hated to see the sadness on him.

“But he was! And none of us noticed it! Fuck, I feel like such a shitty friend.” Karkat looked out the window, his fist almost so tight he could break his own bones. 

“You ain’t a shitty friend. You rescued me, didn’t ya?”

All three heads suddenly snapped back, their disappointment and anger making way for shock. None of them knew how to react so for a moment they just stared in complete and awkward silence. Tavros was the first to break the pattern when tears began to well up in his eyes and he stubbornly wiped them away.

“Gamzee,” he muttered into his arm, muffling the sounds of his sniffling nose. “You’re awake! Thank god!”

“Don’t thank god, thank Karkat!” Gamzee smiled a little as he turned his head up to Karkat, who finally turned his surprise into contempt with a glare and a growl.

“Thank me? THANK ME?” Karkat pushed himself out of the chair and jumped on Gamzee, grabbing him by the collar of his hospital gown and pulling him closer. “I don’t want to be thanked for saving your fucking life! I SHOULDN’T HAVE HAD TO SAVE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!”

Tavros and Terezi both grabbed onto Karkat and pulled him away from Gamzee, trying to calm him down with words and soft pats. While it didn’t work very well, with Karkat finally off Gamzee sat up and fixed the gown. Pushing himself to sit up was a challenge in and of itself, and when he could finally sit and look at his friends at eye level he felt like he’d accomplished a great feat. He tried not to smile but he couldn’t help himself, and when his goofy grin spread across his face he earned himself a heart-wrenching glare, sharp as knives, from Karkat. Terezi and Tavros looked at him, dismayed as well, but he couldn’t drop the smile. He wanted to laugh, if anything, for how serious they were being.

“Stop smiling you fucking ass! This isn’t funny! There’s nothing to smile about!”

“You’re being too motherfucking uptight about all this shit, bro,” Gamzee replied as he scratched his head and practically entwined his fingers within his unkempt mop of black hair. “There’s no need to shout.”

“YOU ALMOST DIED, YOU IGNORANT BASTARD!” Karkat lurched forward again but Terezi caught him in the nick of time, wrapping an arm around his waist and another around his arm. He struggled at first, but gave in when he realized the blind girl had him beat.

“Karkat’s right, Gamzee,” Tavros said, clenching his jaw as he tried not to cry any more. “We almost lost you. When they called me and told me you’d OD’d on something I had a heart attack! I actually fell out of my chair and had to have Vriska help me back up!” Tavros’ attempts to hold back his tears suddenly began to fail quite miserably as they streamed down his cheeks like bullets. Hot tears burned and stained his cheeks but more kept coming, no matter how hard Tavros wiped them away. Gamzee couldn’t look away while one of his best friends began to fall apart in front of him, each attempt becoming more and more futile than the last. Karkat too was right on the brink of tearing up but his anger kept all of the tears from falling.

“I couldn’t stand...the thought of losing my best friend...I can’t...” Tavros choked out between wheezes, his light brown Mohawk falling over half of his face as he buried his head. It was as if Gamzee was watching his heart being ripped from his chest and stabbed with a rusty, poisonous knife over and over with each of Tavros’ tears, and with that his smile finally left him, but he couldn’t stand to look anymore.

Terezi let go of Karkat and walked around the hospital bed, guided by her cane, and sat down in the chair on the other side. “Gamzee, we want you to get help,” she said. “We don’t know what we can do, so we want you to go to these meetings. They’re like...meetings where addicts go to talk about their feelings and junk. I don’t know. It’s supposed to help.”

Gamzee choked back a laugh, running his hand through his hair and pushing it out of his face so they could see the look of confusion on his face. They weren’t seriously going to make him go, were they? “Relax,” he started, “This ain’t nothing to worry about. I’m no addict.”

“Face it: you’re a fucking addict, and you’re going to these fucking meetings!” Karkat hopped up to get right in Gamzee’s face again, but held himself back as he stared furiously at his dopey smile, which only served to infuriate him further. 

Before anything else could be said, a nurse walked into the room. “Visiting hours are up, kids. You’ll have to come back tomorrow to visit.”

Terezi muttered something about not being a kid anymore as she hopped up from her seat, Tavros avoiding Gamzee’s eyes as he wheeled past, but Karkat hesitated. He walked up to the bedside and turned Gamzee’s head forcefully, so he was looking into his eyes. Although Karkat was full of nothing much but hot air, his eyes seemed awfully scary at that moment. “You’re going to get better,” he hissed, “Whether you like it or not.”


	2. Forgiveness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll probably find that this chapter's quite angry...there's a reason for that. I'm really pissed off right now. I'm dealing with so much pain right now and it definitely shows in my writing. As much as I don't like being so upset, I think it fits this chapter. Sober Gamzee isn't a nice Gamzee, after all.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy. :)

It was as clear as crystal on Gamzee’s sunken, scowling face that he had woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning; the side of the bed that was made over to be a torture bed, no less. He looked up at the run-down catholic church with fiery repugnance he knew was unjustified, but had too little concern to give it up. Although his bangs made it difficult to see in front of his face, he could make out the words, “Our Lady of Forgiveness Catholic Church” on the sign to his right. Forgiveness? How ironic. Here he was, going to a stupid meeting for a stupid reason just so he could earn Karkat’s forgiveness...and he was sent to the church of forgiveness.

If they try to force any of their religious crap on me, I’m gonna fucking kill somebody, Gamzee maliciously thought, while anxiously repeating don’t motherfucking kill anyone in his head at the same time. He prayed he wouldn’t get confused by the two, but conflictingly wished he would.

He walked inside the church, and the moment he did the clear-cut scent of incense wafted into his nose. The smell was so strong that he almost sneezed and threw up at the same time. It forced him to cover his mouth in a feeble attempt to filter the smell out but it did very little for him. There were a few people sitting alone in the pews, barely noticeable with the light shining in his eyes from the stained glass windows. Gamzee squinted to get used to the light, looking past it at the scene painted on the windows: a man, radiance beaming from his body as the sun lit those on Earth, with his hands folded in prayer before a scene of crosses lined up in strict order. The more Gamzee stared at it, trying to figure it out, the less he seemed to understand.

“That’s Jesus,” A voice suddenly crept up on him and he jumped, turning around to peer down at a slender woman who gave him the sweetest, calmest of smiles. “He was nailed to the cross in order to forgive us of our sins. I love this mural because it represents that so well.” When she looked up at the stained glass, Gamzee followed her eyes. He didn’t get how a bunch of crosses and a praying dude represented forgiveness, but he wasn’t going to prompt the religious nuts on to rant about it when he didn’t give a shit.

“Yeah...sure,” he replied tiredly, dismissing the mural from his thoughts and shoving his hands into his pockets. The girl eyed him and even from behind his mop of hair he could see her green eyes fixated on him, examining him and picking him apart bit by bit with a single glance. He raised an eyebrow and could feel his eye twitch a bit; her stare unnerved him to where he felt like such an outsider, in the worst kind of way. He knew he didn’t belong there but she was certainly enforcing that notion with her striking gaze and fake smile, and he had to hold himself back from shoving her out of the way and storming out right then and there.

“Are you here for the Substance Abuse Relief meeting?” she suddenly asked, Gamzee pausing in fright as he realized she’d picked up more about him than he wanted her—or anyone, for that matter—to know. He tried to shove his hands deeper into his pockets as he looked back at the brown-haired girl, only to turn away bitterly. She chuckled a little and it only served to piss him off even further. As the seconds went by he found it harder and harder to keep himself in line. He didn’t want to answer her question, but he was pretty sure that if he didn’t give her an answer then she would assume he was anyway; she’d find the answer with her eyes or something.

He scratched the back of his head and gave a light nod. “Mhm,” he murmured, refusing to look her way.

She chuckled once again and Gamzee let out a low growl, although he quickly caught himself in the act. “I figured you would be. You look a little out of place,” she continued, moving in front of him so they were facing each other again. “My name’s Kanaya Maryam...I’m the supervisor for the meeting.”

She reached out and grabbed onto his arm, which he was quick to pull away from but she persisted and took it again, as if he was escorting her. “Come with me, I’ll show you where the meeting is being held.”

Gamzee yanked his arm back for the second time, looking through his hair to glare at her. Her eyes widened and he became glad he’d startled her, raising his hand as he took it back in hopes of frightening her more. “Forget it! I don’t need to go to this motherfucking meeting!” 

People began to collectively shush him and he sneered back in their direction, but as foul as his mood was he knew better. Fuck, stop being such an asshole, he screamed at himself, you’re doing this for Karkat, Tavros, and Terezi...

“Don’t be silly!” Kanaya shouted back, taking his arm and stubbornly holding it tighter this time. “You came here for a reason, didn’t you?”

Gamzee instantly thought of Karkat, his irascible and sombre glare reinforcing his attendance to the meetings. Tavros’ disappointment also stuck out in his mind, and if Karkat hadn’t been so furious with him that would have been enough to make him feel guilty. They’d been best friends all of seventeen years and not once had he ever seen Tavros so upset; thinking about the disheartened expression he’d made brought upon the same look on his painted face, and the feeling of torment followed.

“Well then,” She didn’t wait for another word before she started to drag him back up the aisle. “Let’s go. It’s not going to kill you.”

It could kill you! Gamzee hissed in his mind, trying to take his arm back. Kanaya had such a grip on it, however, that he could barely move it an inch. He only wished he could grab a hold of her tiny little arm and snap it right in half, her screams breaking the tranquil silence and filling the hearts of those who couldn’t have half a prayer answered to get it out of their fucking heads. However much he desired it, disappointment was inevitable. He felt it—the cold, sharp sting of the sharpest and deadliest of swords—and he’d never felt anything more painful. Kanaya pulled him into the back and he didn’t feel like himself, but a pitiful dog being led on a leash. He snarled but she jerked him forward, unfazed and uncompromising. When she finally let him go, he was surrounded by a circle of people just as pathetic as he, with no route for escape.

“Alright, I think we have everyone now! We can start the meeting.” Kanaya motioned to Gamzee to sit, and he complied, hoping it would move everything along faster. He slunk down in his chair and pulled his hood up over his head, praying to whatever god the church held high that he’d be left alone the entire meeting.

The first of many meetings began, but a sudden BANG halted all voices, save for one slurred shout:

“I’M HEREEEEEEEEEE, HONEY!”


End file.
